Trainer Riding is Fun

The new year dawns in Northeast Ohio and local cyclists are faced with hopelessly dark and cold mornings, often punctuated with wet or snow covered roads. With races scheduled as early as February, March and April, I am forced to bite the bullet and head into my basement for my daily morning trainer ride.

This year, I have added more light to the basement to help keep my sprits up. I also have a mini DVD player and radio to help pass the time along with a collection of borrowed cycling DVDs from friends like John, although I can starting to get tired of the same videos. I am considering investing in a small TV equipped with cable or satellite so that I can catch up on news and the markets, however, can't seem to pull the trigger when for the same dollars I could buy some new bike parts that will definately make me faster :)

In an effort not to burn out by June/July, I generally try to keep trainer session to under 2 hours with 1 hour being the norm for 10 hour weeks and 1:30 to 2:00 for longer weeks. Anything over 2 hours can lead to burnout, insanity or both.

Usually, Mondays are pretty easy with mostly Zone 1 and 2 riding. Tuesdays are ususally high cadence intervals (108-120 rpm) riding in Zone 3/Tempo. Wednesdays are blocks of Zone 3/Tempo with a 75-90 cadence, Thursdays is interval day with either 3 to 5 min Max Intervals or 15-30 min Threshold Intervals. Friday is mostly Zone 2 or some variety of intervals depending on what is going on over the weekend. There are also a varierty of other drills that I do including 30 sec spin-ups, low cadence strength building intervals and some one leg pedaling. Saturdays are either trainer in the morning or ride outside once it starts getting light by 7am (when is that anyway?). Sunday is usually a longer ride outside in the 3 to 6 hour range. I am typically out of the house early before everyone is awake and try to get back no later than 10 or 11am (later this time of year).

Anyway, this morning I did 15 min warm up, then 3 x 6 min Fast Pedal (108-116 rpms) at about 240 watts with 4 min rest in between. I then did a 3 minute 320 watt effort, just for kicks and finished up with 10 min Zone 2 cooldown.

Later,

BRD